Video Del Fuego, Part III

I haven't fallen into a rut, honest I haven't, but (a) I'm convalescing from a cold, and don't care to engage in serious thinking; and (b) I just figured out how to embed videos into blog posts. Today, Video Del Fuego lives up to its name, as we honor the Saturn V.

So far as I'm aware, the Saturn V has no nickname. Gods have no nicknames. You approach them with fear and trembling, not with easy familiarity.

This is the most powerful machine ever built by human hands:

Brief science lesson: A fast stream of fluid, like a jet or rocket's exhaust, will drag the neighboring air along with it. So, during a launch, you'll see a very brief puff of smoke at the rocket's base, then see that puff sucked back down into the exhaust channel as the thrust builds up.

Another curious thing you'll see is that the plume coming right out of the nozzle isn't as bright as the flow just downstream. There are two reasons for this. One, the nozzle itself is cooled by a flow of liquid oxygen, so the flow right next to the wall is much cooler than it would be ordinarily. Second, the fuel-oxidizer mixture has not completely burnt up yet. There's just not enough time between the thrust chamber and the end of the nozzle. It's mostly burnt, but not completely.

Musical note: This sequence was set to "Mars, the Bringer of War" from Gustav Holst's suite "The Planets". It's an appropriate piece. The business end of an F-1 engine running full-bore isn't a very friendly place to be.

Bonus double feature: the liftoff of Apollo 8.

This is about the best launch sequence I've seen from this era. You see all the important bits, all the way up through staging. Two things to look for: first, as the vehicle climbs up into the high, thin air of the upper atmosphere, the exaust plume expands. It was designed to match pressures at sea level. But as it gets higher, it's working against thinner air, and the plume expands until it reaches equilibrium. Second, when the second stage lights off, you don't see an exhaust plume. Its J-2 engines burn liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, producing a clear flame. There's exhaust, we just can't see it.

In many ways, this was our finest hour: we built the most powerful machines ever so that we could go somewhere we'd never been, and learn something new we didn't know before.

Video Del Fuego, Part II

Continuing to mine the vein of vintage thunder crates, here's a 1986 Van Halen music video featuring the Blue Angels.

The A-4 Skyhawk was a simply astonishing airshow airplane. Fast, nimble, and they can damn near fly them right on top of one another. I realize that they had lots of good reasons for switching to the F-18, starting with the fact that logistical support was getting expensive, and ending with the fact that military pilots really need to keep currency with their go-to-war airplane.

Be that as it may, I loved Heinemann's Hot Rod, and I still miss it.

Video Del Fuego, Part I

New semi-regular feature: videos from YouTube that I like. For the first entry in this series, let's get acquainted with thirty tons of angry St. Louis steel -- The McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom.

The Smoking Thunderhog lives!

Stupor Tuesday 2008 Post-Mortem

National Primary Day was only about 50% successful. It appears to have decided the Republican primary, but the Democratic primary is still a dead heat. Something is about to happen that I don't think I have ever experienced: the Texas primary will actually mean something, this year.

How very interesting...

I have grown accustomed to making largely symbolic votes. In every previous election that I've participated in, the party's nominee had been pretty well decided by the time I cast my vote. I was either agreeing with the sense of the voters who'd come before, or flinging a protest vote into the wind.

But not so this year, at least, provided that you're voting in the Democratic primary. (If you're a Republican and you don't like McCain, well, sucks to be you.)

Now, what exactly did Super Tuesday do? Two things, really. As I expected, it forced a down-select to a two-man Republican race. What I really didn't expect was that Romney would punch out as quickly as he did. I figured that since he had the cash to stay in, he'd hang around a bit longer. You never know, McCain might implode. He made a good case in his concession speech, though, about America needing a strong war-time President. He's done his party a huge favor, here. Huckabee isn't going to mount a serious challenge, not really. He'll show strength in the small, rural states, but probably not so much in the bigger states. He's basically making a case for VP, at this point. Which means that, even though it's still technically a two-man race, McCain would have to actively try to lose the nomination. It is still mathematically possible for him to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but I don't think he has it in him. He can start trying to unite the party around him now, and prepare the ground for November.

This makes it a much more sporty proposition for the Democrats, who are still engaged in a two-way knife fight in a phone booth. Super Tuesday clarified exactly jack. Clinton and Obama are still locked in a tie for the national delegate count. What's interesting is that Obama took some recent wins in Maine, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington. Interesting, but not conclusive ... but nonetheless, Clinton is shaking up her campaign organization. You can tell a lot about the state of a struggle by looking at who is dictating the pace and tempo of the conflict. It's all about the initiative. It doesn't matter if you're talking about small-unit tactics, football, or political campaigns, the principle is still the same. As I said earlier, it's pretty clear that Obama is inside Clinton's decision cycle. Hillary is still on the Decide portion of her OODA loop, while Obama is already Orienting on his next cycle. I don't think this shake-up is going to be enough. She has to do something absolutely gob-smackingly spectacular to regain the initiative. The question is, is her campiagn sufficiently agile to make that happen?

It makes for a fascinating question. I just don't know yet. It should be interesting to find out, though.

Red-Letter Day

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, I led out with a book that was very influential to me, that I think everyone ought to re-read and give serious thought to. The theory is that, re-reading these books as a middle-aged adult, I might gain some new insights.

Well, partially correct. I now know precisely why I despised The Scarlet Letter. I couldn't quite put my finger on it before, but I sure can now. And while I'd like to say that I had the fortitude to hang with it to the bitter end, I can't. About two thirds of the way through I decided that I'd had as much of the company of the Dynamic Duo -- Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth -- as I cared to. It was indeed the rare chapter that I didn't want to reach into the story and pimp-slap the both of them. Should you ever see this passage materialize in the text, you'll know I succeeded: "Forsooth! A disembodied hand from the Future hath descended from the Heavens and smote both Mr Dimmesdale and Mr Chillingworth into unconsciousness! Prithee, what doth it portend?"

It doth portendeth that this book sucketh, Beavis.

But, with the possible exceptions of the Dazzler graphic novel and The Sixgun Samurai, nothing is entirely bereft of redeeming qualities. The book does have some good points to make.

A minister told me once that there are three fundamental problems in the human spirit: guilt, bitterness, and stubbornness. Each of the three has its natural remedy: asking forgiveness, giving forgiveness, and submission to a higher authority, respectively. We see examples of all of the above, in abundance. Dimmesdale is wracked by guilt, but is too stubbornly proud to seek forgiveness. Chillingworth is consumed by bitterness, but is too stubbornly proud to forgive. Hester seems a bit stubborn at first, but of the three she is the only one who is actually working through her problems, trying to find some kind of redemption. This went completely over my head when I was younger. Stories of loss and redemption are wasted on the youth. You really have to be middle-aged to understand, to realize that the fondest dream of a man past his first youth is for a second chance. I was able to get that now, in a way that I couldn't then, and I'd have enjoyed it better if it weren't for one lamentable fact.

There are no real men in this book.

This book is absolutely jam-packed with examples of men shirking, avoiding, and otherwise ignoring their manly duties. Part of the sympathy Hester gets is due to the fact that she is so horribly ill-used by the so-called men who should be her staunchest defenders: her minister, and her husband. Poor Hester. Stuck for all eternity in a story with only these two chimps for company. But I get ahead of myself:

Where do I begin? Arthur Dimmesdale is a mewling, crawling, simpering, craven, boot-licking coward. He knows what he needs to do, knows what he ought to do, knows the right thing to do, but can't find the backbone to do it. Instead, he wails and moans about his guilt, beats himself as if that actually meant something, and otherwise makes a nuisance of himself. The Fist of the Future has this to say to the Reverend: MAN up, 'FESS up, take your lumps, and move on. You'll feel better, breathe easier, and enjoy life more. He makes a belated, half-hearted effort at this later in the book, but true to form, isn't enough of a man to pull it off successfully.

Not that Roger Chillingworth, the amazing human urine stain, is any better ... or, to give him the proper name he abandoned, Mr. Prynne. What a cad. What a miserable oxygen thief. Let's start with the fact that, if he were any kind of real man at all, he wouldn't have sent his young wife ahead of him to break trail in the wilderness, but would have come himself and sent for her later. But he didn't, and so he gave Hester the means, motive, and opportunity to dance the naked pretzel with the good Reverend. He had an opportunity to salvage what was left of his manhood, but botched it: he abandoned his wife to destitution while he sought his meaningless revenge. Revenge for what? For your non-existent manly honor? Wasted effort, pal. Here, why don't you go swimming with these cement overshoes, and hold onto this fathom of anchor chain while you're at it? You may not feel better, but I sure will.

Anyway, you may go in for this sort of gratuitous self-abuse, but I've had all I can stand. If you want to read a historical novel about adultery, go pick up any of the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser. They're far more entertaining, and far less painful, than this particular groin-stomp in literary form.

Final verdict: Not recommended. Stay away from it, unless you happen to be a high-school lit teacher, or student, in which case you have my most profound sympathy.

Phase Change

One of the most fascinating phenomena in physical chemistry is the phase change. Did you know that the temperature of a melting ice cube does not change? As you add heat to an ice cube at melting point, the heat does not go towards raising the ice's temperature, but to changing the phase of the water from solid to liquid. And did you know that the temperature of a pot of boiling water also does not change, for the same reason? The additional heat goes towards changing the phase from liquid to gas, not towards raising the temperature.

There are other phenomena I find interesting, that are kind of similar. For example, you can take a very hot pot of water, and dissolve a bunch of sugar. Then, if you're careful, and cool the solution very slowly, all of the sugar will stay dissolved. This is what you call a super-saturated solution -- it has way, way more sugar dissolved in it than it ought to at that temperature. But the solution is very unstable. The extra sugar wants to come out of solution, badly. Drop one crystal in, and foom! Instantly, the water clouds up as sugar crystals precipitate out of the saturated solution.

I feel a little as if I were watching something like that happen.

Last time, I was writing about a complex race for the Republican nomination for President, and a three-way scrum for the Democratic nomination. All of a sudden, the picture has become much more plain.

Well, I knew that Giuliani had to pull big numbers in Florida if he wanted to stay competitive. He didn't, and was set to crash and burn in short order. What I didn't expect was that he'd be so ruthless about cutting his losses and pulling the plug once it became clear that his gamble didn't pay off. What I really didn't expect, and what caught me completely gobsmacked, was seeing John Edwards bail out, too.

Some observations follow:

First, the early primaries have worked more or less as intended. They've shaken the tree and flushed out the flakes and lightweights. Those still clinging on have either lots of support, or rather more than the normal ration of stubborn tenacity. Leaving aside the stubborn cranks -- that means you, Dr. Paul and Sen. Gravel -- the remaining candidates represent substantial constituencies within their respective parties. Now, the state parties get to sort out who represents them come November.

Second, Super Tuesday is liable to set up the political equivalent of a Breakout and Pursuit situation, possibly in both parties. At this point, I really think the Republican nomination is John McCain's to lose. He won big in Florida, and picked up some key endorsements not only from Giuliani, but from Governor Schwarzenegger of California. Given their respective popularity within New York and California, that probably safely delivers those states into the McCain camp. Big, big advantage there. McCain can probably still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but he'll have to put in a Herculean -- nay, a Clayton Williams-ian -- effort to do so.

(Ah, Clayton Williams ... Now there was a rare one. He had an easy run at the Republican nomination for Governor of Texas in 1990, plenty of money, a solid grass-roots organization, and he was facing a Democratic opponent weakened by a brutal, ugly primary campaign. But with unerring precision he swept all of these obstacles aside, and from tranquility wrought a smoking, chaotic ruin. Ann Richards stunned everyone with a come-from-behind win. We may never see his like again. But I digress...)

The picture on the Democratic side is muddier, but looking steadily less favorable for the Clinton camp. They took a stinging hit in South Carolina, and another body blow with the endorsements from the Kennedys (Ted and Caroline) for Barack Obama. And that was before the bombshell dropped that Edwards was quitting. It's far too early to say that the race is Obama's to lose, but I do think it's fair to say that Obama is inside Clinton's decision cycle. If that persists, then the junior Senator from Illinois will take it all the way home. Clinton simply has to do something to regain the initiative, she's sunk otherwise.

Third, I think that the Republican base is about to fracture. How the Republicans manage this will determine if their center can hold, and whether they can run a competitive campaign come November. As I see it, there are three basic constituencies within the Republican party: the National Security conservatives, the Fiscal conservatives, and the Social conservatives. Reagan somehow spot-welded these into a coalition that's lasted almost thirty years now. It's beginning to show cracks. Each of these constituencies has a candidate in the primary. John McCain is the natural choice for the voter who's interested in a strong military and a bullish foreign posture. Mitt Romney's business acumen and background is attractive to the fiscally-oriented voter. And Mike Huckabee is a natural fit for the social conservative. Only one can win, and I've already said that I think McCain is the man. Question is, do the other two factions line up and play ball, or do they sit it out? I think the fiscal conservatives will, but will the social conservatives? I think many of them did sit out 2006. Too early to tell, and this may not be the year it goes blooey, but the schism's coming.

Mind you, all of this may change at a moment's notice. That's what makes this season so interesting.

Fight's On!

What a difference two months makes. As I mentioned earlier, I was afraid that the front-loading of the primary season would essentially pre-select the nominees, making the process essentially superfluous. Boy, was I ever wrong.

This is shaping up to be the most wide-open primary season since 1928: for the first time in living memory, neither party has an incumbent running for re-election, nor does either have a vice-president standing for his own first term in the top job. It's a no-holds-barred full-contact scrum, which is first-rate entertainment for those of us who consider politics to be their favorite indoor sport. But some serious questions are at stake, as both parties must contend with figuring out where they go from here. So, with no further ado:

The Republicans

The race for the Republican nomination has settled down into a four-man brawl between Mitt Romney, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani, with poor Ron Paul hanging on at the end out of sheer bull-headed stubbornness. (Capital-L Libertarians are good at sheer bull-headed stubbornness.) Super Tuesday on February 5th will probably cause a down-select to a three-man or two-man field, but will probably not cement anyone as a clear front-runner. We may even arrive at a contested convention for the first time in ... well, damn near forever. Capsule TTS reviews of the candidates, in descending order of current delegate count:

Mitt Romney is an empty suit. I'm sorry, but that's about the only way I can put it. He put in a good turn as Governor of Massachusetts, and his health insurance legislation actually makes a lot of sense. But what does he really believe? What direction would he take us in foreign affairs? What does he really think about domestic policy? To me, it seems like he says whatever he thinks will stick, poll-wise. That might make him a savvy politician, but a damn poor excuse for a leader. Thank you for playing, Sir, your consolation prize is a job running the RNC for the next four years.

John McCain can sometimes be an angry, angry man. Anger is a useful servant, but a perilous master; I think he has finally learned this, and has managed to keep that in check so far this year. Of all the Republicans, I like him best. His record of service is above reproach, and it's a fact that no one in this year's list has made greater sacrifices nor suffered more in America's cause than he has. He's the least nutty on domestic issues, and having worn the uniform himself will think long and hard before sending our warriors into harm's way. But his campaign is running on a shoestring and a prayer, he might end up running out of money. Strong showings so far have kept him afloat, and a strong showing on Super Tuesday keeps him in the fight, possibly for the duration.

Mike Huckabee is the real-world name for the presidential candidate that Robert Heinlein predicted would win in 2012: Nehemiah Scudder. It's scary: old Bob sure could call 'em, couldn't he? But he's going nowhere fast. Aside from the God-Guns-Gays trifecta, there's precious little daylight separating him from John Edwards. He's not so much a conservative as he is a Christian socialist. After his surprise win in Iowa, the antibodies of the Republican party have come out. The old guard is not about to let him win the nomination. Expect him to make a good showing in the rural South, and then sink without a trace.

Rudy Giuliani was the widely-expected front runner about a year ago, but his poll numbers have been in steady decline since then. Chris Rock likens him to a pit bull: sure, he'll keep burglars out of your apartment, but he might eat your kids. He's the all-security-all-the-time candidate. This made him a good mayor for New York at the time, and he did make the streets safe for walking again. But he's scary, scary, scary when it comes to civil liberties. He may or may not last, though. He's put all his chips on Florida. Unless he comes up with big money there next week, he's probably toast.

Ron Paul, God bless him, is the Dennis Kucinich of the Republicans. He's an earnest nut, but he's still a nut. The only thing keeping him going at this point is pure titanium-skulled stubbornness. Which means he'll probably be in the race for the duration, unless he flat runs out of money.

The Democrats

The also-rans have, for the most part, been flushed out of the Democrat field, leaving three serious contenders and one stubborn bastard: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Mike Gravel. Super Tuesday may or may not force a down-select, but it will probably firm up a de facto two-way race between Clinton and Obama. If Edwards pulls enough delegates he might swing some clout in a brokered convention. It's a long shot, but could still happen. Unless Edwards pulls that kind of support, though, we'll probably exit Super Tuesday with a clear front-runner. Capsule TTS reviews of the candidates, in descending order of current delegate count:

Hillary Clinton is ... problematic. I have no doubt that she can do the job. She probably wouldn't suck. Bush has set that bar appallingly low. But I can't go there. You see, anyone younger than their early to mid twenties has never known a President who wasn't named Bush or Clinton. Dynastic succession is something that happens in places like North Korea or Syria. It is not something that should happen in a Republic. Besides which, I have a generational beef. With liberals of her generation, it's always 1968, and every stinking foreign policy issue ends up in the damn rice paddies. It's completely got them wrapped around the axle, and when it comes to considering foreign interventions, they're incapable of rational thought. I so want to get past that.

Barack Obama offers a fresh approach, even if he offers nothing else. I like most of what he's said so far, and even the things I don't agree with are at least well reasoned out. He appears to be someone with whom you can have a substantive discussion without it breaking down into name-calling. He's someone who can talk to conservatives, not at them. Which, given his background, is no real surprise: he was a law professor at the University of Chicago, not an especially liberal institution, and had decent working relationships with his conservative colleagues. And he's an example of what's still right with America: there are very few things that the sons of immigrants can't aspire to. If he's smart enough to surround himself with good advisors, and wise enough to know when they're smoking rope, we could do rather worse than elect him President. (We could elect Huckabee, for example...)

If John Edwards were any kind of real man at all, he'd have withdrawn his candidacy as soon as he found out that his wife's cancer had metastasized. And that's really about all I have to say about him. I have had a low opinion of Edwards ever since the wrap-up to the 2004 election. The day after, when they were considering the Ohio vote, John Kerry swallowed his disappointment like a man, and decided to spare America another long drawn-out period of indecision. Edwards wanted to fight on regardless. It didn't matter what kind of collateral damage he would do to America, so long as he could fight for his own power. Him, we don't need. G'bye, and good riddance.

Mike Gravel is a magnificent stubborn old coot that no one's ever heard of. I have to admit, I have a certain amount of admiration for guys that hang on despite the fact that Satan will drive a snowplow to work before they win the nomination. But as an Alaskan who is accustomed to waiting six months for the next sunrise, patience is something that comes as second nature to a man like Gravel. God bless you, brother, and I'll be a little saddened to see you go. But your campaign ain't long for this world... He'll probably end up as the down-selectee come Super Tuesday.

The Expected Results

If God is merciful, we'll get to choose between John McCain and Barack Obama in November. It could still shake out that way. It probably won't: Clinton will probably be the Democrat front-runner after Super Tuesday, with Obama nipping at her heels going into the convention. But God alone knows who'll be ahead on the Republican side. I like McCain's chances. Romney probably doesn't have the staying power, and Giuliani has got to do something to arrest his slide. Rudy's Super Tuesday gamble might pay off. If not, he's outta here. If it stays a three- or four-way race, the Republican convention could be a righteous scrum indeed. Get your popcorn ready, 'cause it's gonna be one wild ride.

Vote early, and vote often!

A Christmas Story

The story that follows is true. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The year 2001 started out well enough, but with September began a bit of a slump, for reasons that should be obvious. Christmas left me with little to celebrate that year, newly unemployed and wondering what I'd be doing next. So, when we all decided to go to the midnight Christmas Eve service, that gave me something to look forward to. I had never been to a midnight service before. It promised to be something new, something wonderful, and something inspirational.

It lived up to the new part. I'm still not sure about the rest.

We had been attending the little Presbyterian church for about three months, maybe four. We had all enjoyed the experience so far. The interim minister had just preached his last service, and we were sorry to see him go. The new minister hadn't started yet. As I understand it, there's a list of pastors without regular commitments who will preach on an as-needed basis, and we had rounded up one of these. He came with good recommendations, and had done well with the earlier service. So, we settled in for a comforting, enlightening message about the Advent of our Savior.

Right away, it became apparent that something was simply not right.

You have to understand something about Presbyterians. They live and die by the Book of Order. There is a very specific sequence in which things are to happen within a service. You can almost set your watch by the order of worship. In, say, a Baptist service, the minister might well deviate from the plan if he thinks of something better; in a Presbyterian service you bloody well stick with it to the bitter end. It is simply the way it is done.

So, when the minister began skipping around within the order of worship, we suspected something might be up.

He called for the offering mighty early. He skipped around with the hymns, which flustered the choir director mightily. He even skipped a few hymns, I think. Parts of that evening are still a blur. But the staff rolled with the punches fairly well, and the thing hung together, up to the time he began his message. We settled back into our pews, expecting a sweet message on the miracle of Christmas, the birth of the Christ child.

Oh, no. It wasn't going down that way, not at all. Those poor, unsuspecting Presbyterians looked on in mute horror as the Right Reverend Punchy MacAngry regaled them with a fiery sermon on the Gospel of the Two-Fisted Fightin' Jesus.

"I hear all this talk about love, but no one ever wants to talk about SIN," he thundered from the pulpit. I thought this to be a decidedly odd way to begin a Christmas sermon. It went downhill from there. He went on to rant about his sister, who had apparently told him once that being a military chaplain wasn't a man's job. His response: "It takes more of a man to preach the Word of God than to be out WHORING AROUND!" I had never actually heard anyone curse from the pulpit before. Oh sure, I have heard ministers talk about Hell and damnation. But outright cursing is something I hadn't heard in that venue before that night. And the fist-shaking rage, the purple-faced profanity-laced tirades, which would not be at all out of place for a Marine Corps drill instructor, but not quite what you expect from a mild-mannered Presbyterian minister.

Me, I was bewildered and somewhat confused by all this. But I had been raised by a retired Senior Master Sergeant, cussed at by an experienced professional, and didn't take any of it personally. The other poor people in that room, who had not been so inoculated, stood transfixed like deer in headlamps. The white-hot profanity seared their ears like branding irons. When the tirade finally wound down to a conclusion, you could hear a pin drop.

The choir director somehow had the presence of mind to direct the conclusion of the service, Christmas hymns sung by candlelight.

It was more or less at this point that my sister-in-law's hair caught fire.

Part of our goal in going to the late service was to tire out the children so that they would sleep in the next morning. (A dismal failure, by the way. They woke up as early as they always do.) Problem was, they were so tired, they couldn't hold the candles without setting fire to themselves. She leaned down to help one of her kids hold it steady, and one of the locks of her hair dipped into the candle's flame. The fire wasn't big, thank God, but she had to beat it out or it would have spread.

After the last hymn, the crowd filed out in silence. Not the respectful silence following a solemn service like, say, Good Friday, but the stunned silence of the witnesses of a massacre. Not a word was spoken, until we were in the car, on the way home. Then, I think I turned to my wife and asked, "Did I imagine that, or did he really go there?"

And so it has come to pass that re-telling this story is now part of my family's Christmas tradition. A very surreal ending to what had been a pretty dismal autumn. Sometimes the things that happen make no sense, no sense at all, but you just have to get through them anyway.

Life does, after all, go on.

More Christmas cheer can be found in a piece by David Sedaris. Part One can be found here, Part Two here, and Part Three here. Or, if you would prefer not to patronize YouTube, the transcript is here.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

No Delegates For You!

Well, isn't this interesting?

To recap the news flash, the Democratic Party has stripped the Michigan delegation of its, erm, delegates to the national convention. The Republican Party has also levied sanctions, though not to this degree.

Michigan's sin, for those of you keeping score, was scheduling its primary on January 15th. Only three states are allowed to have primaries ahead of February 5th, those being Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

While part of me applauds at any attempt to forestall the inevitability of National Plebiscite Day, most of me realizes that it's spitting in the ocean. When you're well and truly on the roller coaster to Hades, the only thing for it is to raise your hands and scream "Woooooooo!"

It won't make you any happier to get there, but you may as well enjoy the ride.

A Minor Complaint

A while back, I made a note about the upcoming election to the effect, "Wake me after football season." Well, that's proving to be a bit of a problem. This election season is beginning to look ridiculously front-loaded to the point that if I were to wait until after the Super Bowl to start thinking about things, the primary contest would be essentially over and done with. So, I need to give some thought to the candidates a little earlier than I'd originally intended to. But before that, I'm going to gripe a little bit about the schedule.

This is just slightly nuts.

A look at the calendar reveals that half or more of the delegates to each party's national convention will have been decided by the time polls close on February 5th. The national conventions aren't until late August and early September.

Can someone tell me why it's a good idea to have a five-month gap between the time when we know who the party's nominee will be and the national convention? Can someone tell me why such an insane amount of front-loading is a good thing?

Look: You know, I know, everybody knows that we're eventually going to have a national plebiscite primary system. It's going to happen by default, if for no other reason. I don't know that it's a good thing, necessarily, but it has it's own momentum and will be darn near impossible to stop. So let's try to think about how we can make it make some kind of sense.

There is no good reason for said plebiscite to happen in early February, with the general election in November. That's just a hair short of raving idiocy.

What would a sane schedule look like? Well, consider this: there's about two months between the national conventions and the general election. That seems like a good idea to me. Now, let's back up about two months from the nationals, and that sets a pretty good window for the state conventions. If the national conventions are in late August and early September, then the state conventions should happen in June, possibly early July. I think that most of them do take place in this time-frame already.

Now, prior to the state conventions, you need to hold local conventions. These can happen in April or May.

There is, therefore, no good reason for the national plebiscite to happen any earlier than March. Late March would be good. Early to mid-April would be a fairly defensible choice as well. This shortens the campaign season by a good bit, and lessens the extent to which the American voter succumbs to election fatigue. Not that this necessarily means that the campaigns will be more focused on serious issues as a result. No, they'll still engage in a race to the bottom with gusto and vigor, same as always.

But we'll have less of it to endure. That's worth something.